Andrew Pellerito, age 22, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, Kent county.
Parents: Salvatore Pellerito
Service era: World War II
Date of death: Saturday, November 20, 1943
Death details: On August 19, 2021, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Corporal Andrew Pellerito, missing from World War II. Corporal Pellerito entered the U.S. Marine Corps from Michigan and served with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Division. In November of 1943, he took part in the large-scale amphibious assault on the Japanese-held Tarawa Atoll, Gilbert Islands. CPL Pellerito was killed in action on November 20, 1943, during the offensive onto the island of Betio. He was buried in Cemetery 33 on the island. After the island was captured, U.S. Naval construction units adjusted the Marine cemeteries on Betio, causing the grave markers at Cemetery 33 to no longer sit atop their original rows. When the Graves Registration Company recovered war-dead remains from Betio after the war, they were unable to locate some of the remains that had been buried at the Marine cemeteries, including those of CPL Pellerito. In 2014, the non-profit organization History Flight, Inc. began excavating Cemetery 33. Human remains and material evidence they recovered were transferred the the DPAA for analysis and identification. In December of 2016, a set of remains that History Flight had sent to the DPAA were consolidated with a previously recovered set of unknown remains. Laboratory analysis and circumstantial evidence led to the identification of this consolidated set of remains as those of CPL Pellerito.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency